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Monday, October 22, 2007      New: Take a Stand

Fighting intensifies along Turkey-Iraq border

ANKARA — Turkey's military has been engaged in heavy fighting with Kurdish insurgents along the border with as well as inside Iraq.

Military sources said about 40 people were killed on Sunday in fighting between Turkish troops and the Kurdish Workers Party, Middle East Newsline reported. The sources said the battles took place along the Iraqi-Turkish border as well as inside Iraq.

"This time the Turkish offensive is not limited in area," a military source said.

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PKK fighters ambushed a Turkish military convoy that was crossing a bridge in the Hakari province along the Iraqi border. At least 16 soldiers were killed when the bridge was blown up near the village of Daglica.

"Our boys are dying," Turkish Defense Minister Vecdi Gonul said.

Hours later, Turkish forces conducted attacks throughout the border area. At least 23 PKK combatants were killed in Turkish military operations, which included shelling inside northern Iraq.

The sources said more than 60,000 Turkish troops, backed by M-60A3 main battle tanks, armored personnel carriers and AH-1W Cobra helicopters, were scouring the border area for PKK insurgents. At the same time, Turkish artillery units were pounding suspected PKK strongholds in the Kandil mountains in northern Iraq.

"The clashes are still under way,' Turkish Deputy Prime Minister Cemil Cicek said. "Every kind of attack will be avenged many times over."

On Oct. 17, Turkey's parliament approved a military plan for a counter-insurgency operation inside Iraq. But the government of Prime Minister Recep Erdogan said it has not ordered such an attack.

Still, Turkey has urged the United States to support the elimination of PKK bases in northern Iraq. On Sunday, Gonul met U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates while U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice telephoned Turkish Prime Minister Recep Erdogan.

"We like to do these things with the Americans," Gonul said.

Both Gates and Rice urged Turkey not to order the military into Iraq. The two American secretaries said any invasion would destabilize Iraq and spark an international crisis.

"I didn't have the impression that anything is imminent," Gates said after he met Gonaul at a defense ministers meeting in Kiev. "A major cross-border operation would be contrary to Turkey's interest as well as to our own and to that of Iraq."

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